Comments on: Responsible or not? Burger King’s Whopper Virgins

By: tedlow

tedlow — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:36:42 +0000

There’s a funny blog on freedomhaters.org on the Whopper Virgins commercial.

It ties it into Noam Chomsky and how the indigenous people on the commercials will most likely be forced to move to big cities when the fast food chains move in, and have to work for Burger King for a tenth of what American’s make.

Check it out here:

http://freedomhaters.org/content/what-would-noam-chomsky-say-about-burger-kings-whopper-virgin-ad-campaign

By: ginger

ginger — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:38:37 +0000

For those of you who were offended by the use of the word virgin, please read below in the Miriam Webster Dictionary definition, particularly item 4 part b.

Main Entry: 1vir·gin
Pronunciation: \?v?r-j?n\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French virgine, from Latin virgin-, virgo young woman, virgin
Date: 13th century
1 a: an unmarried woman devoted to religion bcapitalized : virgo
2 a: an absolutely chaste young woman b: an unmarried girl or woman
3capitalized : virgin mary
4 a: a person who has not had sexual intercourse b: a person who is inexperienced in a usually specified sphere of activity
5: a female animal that has never copulated

Also – to the rest of you who implied that the people that taste tested the burgers were impoverished – did you actually watch the entire video?

Sadly – this is the state of America. Too many of us are offended by nearly everything and assume anyone who doesn’t live like us is less fortunate than us.

I thought this video was fascinating and the cultural exchange with food and the interaction was most excellent. The fellow who gave the lovely hand made coat to the American may have thought he was impoverished because he didn’t have a beautiful coat. ; )

By: HLsupporter

HLsupporter — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:04:26 +0000

What about these Whopper, Perrier, Mercedes, IBIS and School Virgins?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEyvS56Y9A

By: brandi kae

brandi kae — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:43:52 +0000

The commercial is COMPLETELY OFFENSIVE and needs to be stopped.

By: Burger King Flame: Body spray of seduction | The Responsible Marketing Blog

Burger King Flame: Body spray of seduction | The Responsible Marketing Blog — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 07:14:17 +0000

[...] King—fresh from a beating in the blogosphere for their Whopper Virgins campaign—has snapped [...]

By: Comparitive advertising: Love it or hate it? | The Responsible Marketing Blog

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:49:40 +0000

[...] Lite v. Bud Light, Whopper v. Big Mac, Campbells v. Progresso and Dunkin’ Donuts (or McDonalds) v. Starbucks all immediately come [...]

By: Moon

Moon — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:02:50 +0000

Honestly, I don’t get where the film’s critics are coming from, I thought it was fascinating. I watched a story about it on CBS this morning, and one of the critics was blasting them for doing this in “impoverished” areas, it didn’t strike me that way, they were an entirely different culture, a culture *we’re* not familiar with either, obviously rural cultures as opposed to city cultures. What we call rural in America takes on a whole different meaning in Europe and Asia, we have big ol pickups and tractors in our rural picture, and happy farmers with the latest equipment and electricity milking cows in a sterile environment, we just don’t relate to rural in the way that Europeans and Asians do. A representative from Burger King responded that these people were in no way starving, that food was abundant in the locations where they filmed this, and they were very careful to make sure that they were going to locations where food was abundant and the people were healthy and happy in their cultural context. While Americans would look at their surroundings and consider that if an American lived that way, we would consider such an American to be “impoverished” by our standards, an American would look at a culture like that and liken it to some remote hollers in Appalachia, and Americans consider such rustic types to be impoverished when they are not necessarily. As near as I can tell, these folks aren’t any more “impoverished” than Amish farmers, but we have a bias concerning things like living without electricity and department stores. That is a reflection of our arrogance and our spoiled American McMansion lifestyle to a point where even well meaning people have a blind spot. It really didn’t strike me as an attempt at comedy, either, or as poking fun at these people, but again it seems to me to be lodged in American blind spots. If this were a show on the National Geographic channel where scientific types go out to study a tribal society, and expose the members of the tribe to cultural artifacts such as watches or Tupperware, the same folks who are blasting this idea would probably find it interesting as a scientific study, as opposed to a commercial, and would less likely have looked at it as “exploiting” these people if it were an actual documentary instead of a commercial. The point they would be missing then is that the whole point of the show would be to sell air time for the sponsors who sponsor the show, it’s still there to sell stuff, if you put Burger King on it, or National Geographic, yet it’s somehow more “pure” if you sandwich the sponsor’s commercials between segments of the “legitimate” show. If there is any irresponsibility going on, I would suggest that it is in Burger King making a commercial that Americans suffer culture shock in watching, and a little too cutting edge for some of the viewers to cope with. I don’t understand the hoohaw over the term Whopper Virgin either, the term Virgin has been used as slang in our culture for some time now to signify someone who has never done (insert activity), and not just as a descriptive of someone who has never had sex anymore. I found the cultural exchange of offering a town a burger party, then the town turns around and offers a cultural exchange of their local dishes looked like fun to me. I also liked that they showed all the responses, no matter what was picked, obviously the Whopper was in the lead, but there were plenty of responses of Big Mac or no preference shown, not just editing it to look like every one said Whopper Whopper Whopper, one guy would rather have seal meat, thank you very much…..maybe they just didn’t account for American blind spots where Americans observe a vastly different culture enough.

By: lsb57

lsb57 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:16:45 +0000

Actually, the only place in Romania where people wear that particular kind of costume IS more than 10 hours away from Bucharest (and where the rest of the scenes were filmed). I still do not understand why would they bother to fly/drive those people to Bucharest, move them 15 minutes away from the big city (!!!), fly them and the whole crew and a BK grill back to the other end of the coutry… Not that it matters from a marketing point of view

By: Melissa Griswold

Melissa Griswold — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:51 +0000

Alright! I think I see where everyone (myself included) is confused about the location of these places. I re-watched the video and their TESTING facility was 15 minutes away from the McD’s and BK in Bucharest. Then they all went back the the villages, which are not 15 minutes away.

By: Lorena

Lorena — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:23:03 +0000

Yes, I think it was responsible marketing. Some people were asked to do a taste test. They offered their opinion. Whooper proved itself better than McD. Everybody is happy. And I thought the movie was funny. And I still do not eat at BK.

I also think the movie needs some clarification and BK were not fair in doing this … I am originally from Romania. The village of Budesti is not situated “15 minutes away from the nearest BK” (as even the map implies: Bucharest-Budesti=15 minutes – I have no idea where those people were running). A search on maps.yahoo.com locates it (approx) 10 hrs and 38 minutes away from Bucharest (http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=46.063984&lon=24.76271&zoom=8&q1=bucharest%252C%2520romania&q2=maramures%2520romania) – and the closest BK (5 locations in Romania, with plans to open 10 more in 2009 – http://www.burgerking.com.ro – Romanian only).

Leaving the BK movie aside, I think the critics need to better make their homework:

1. Is “remote” relative” to the nearest BK or on a map, in general? Calling Romania “remote” is far from truth. We are talking about an EU country, less than 1000 miles away from Western Europe…

2. Labelling – without research or knowledge – countries or regions as “impoverished” – is this really the truth?

Those Romanian people are not impoverished. They do not live in foreclosed homes and some of them might even have more money than many of us. They have all the money they need (and more). Those people have not changed their customs for more than 2000 years and are so proud of their heritage and the way they dress and live – they could not care less for BK, McD, and urbanization.

Looking at the rest of the people featured in the movie, I guess what I noticed about Romania is valid for the other countries, too.